“What I just said was a total waste, huh, buddy?” Pan Feng’s eyes widened. “I told you, Derivers are strong. What are you trying to prove? Are you looking for death? Why don’t you come with us to finish the main quest first, and then we’ll leave this script, okay?”

“As you said, a fourth-level Deriver in a script of this level is only slightly stronger than a boss like Ashford in terms of intelligence and combat power,” Feng Bujue said. “Why couldn’t it be killed?”

“The problem is, you don’t have to help us kill it, right?” Hua Xiong asked.

Xiao Tan, standing beside him, wore a shocked expression. He also turned to Feng Bujue and said, “Yeah! We don’t need to kill it, right?”

“The reason you say there’s no need is because… if a player kills a Deriver, it doesn’t count as a side or hidden quest, it doesn’t help the main quest, and it’s also very risky, right?” Feng Bujue said.

The three nodded in unison. “That’s right.”

“Aside from the possible gains in specialization levels, skill values, etc., have you all overlooked the most important thing that a ‘game’ should bring to players?” Feng Bujue asked.

“Uh… what?”

“Fun,” Feng Bujue laughed. “You also said that the chances of players encountering a Deriver are slim, and there may not be a second time. But this team script thing, I can queue up for it as many times as I want. What does it matter if I die once?” He paused, then continued, “It’s rare to encounter a Deriver, but I’m just watching two GMs clear the main quest from the sidelines, and then I get sent out of the script. That’s too boring, right? Even if I queue up for a normal script and get killed by a monster halfway through, it’s more interesting than this.”

Xiao Tan looked up at a forty-five-degree angle. “Now that you mention it… I suddenly feel like not chasing that Deriver is a loss.”

“That’s right. How many people can’t even encounter one? So what if we die at its hands?” Feng Bujue said. “It’s like you’ve beaten Contra ten thousand times, and suddenly in a certain level, you encounter a Castlevania boss at the end. Even if you die, you wouldn’t consider going around it, right?”

“Oh, oh! That makes a lot of sense!” Xiao Tan said excitedly.

“This kid’s thinking is a bit abnormal…” Pan Feng whispered to Hua Xiong.

“More than abnormal, it’s downright gentlemanly (perverted)…” Hua Xiong whispered back.

“You two are whispering so close to me again! What good does that do?” Feng Bujue shouted.

…………

5:00 PM, in front of the gun shop.

Feng Bujue and Wang Tanzhi were examining the scene of the death.

Young Master Atobe and NamesAreHardToComeUpWith had already turned into white light and disappeared. After a player is killed, the body will not remain in the script. Similarly, if a player is mutated due to a virus, then when the mutation time limit is reached, the player will turn into white light and disappear. At the same time, a corresponding ordinary zombie monster will be spawned at the last location of the player.

In short, the game company will not allow players' corpses to be retained in the script in any form. Players either turn into white light and leave, or they remain alive.

Without a corpse, it was difficult to directly reconstruct the Deriver’s attack, but Feng Bujue made some inferences based on the torn and bloodstained sofa: “They were sitting here, holding guns, each responsible for guarding a direction.” As he spoke, he sat down on the sofa. “Therefore, there are more bullet casings near the sofa, and the direction of the monster’s blood spatter also indicates this.” He looked at the direction that Xiao Ming had been responsible for in life. “The Deriver came from that side…” As he spoke, he stood up, walked forward, all the way to the intersection ahead, and then turned back, all the while observing the ground. “The Deriver should be a woman, at least from a distance, it doesn’t look like a monster. Perhaps it’s even a beauty…”

“You can even tell that?” Xiao Tan asked.

“These bloodstains are very useful. Anyone who walks on this street will inevitably leave shoe prints.” Feng Bujue crouched down, looking at the ground. “There’s a row of high-heeled shoe prints here, very obvious.” He looked up. “And all the zombie corpses on this street, male or female, are not wearing high heels,” he explained. “This indicates that the owner of these footprints is not here at the moment. It killed two players and then left.”

Feng Bujue stood up and took a few more steps. “The footprints stop about ten steps away from the sofa. This should be the distance it launched its attack from.” He walked all the way to the sofa. “Here, there’s a clear shoe print, right in front of the sofa, the place where she stood when she attacked.” He looked back at the ten steps away. “A distance of nearly seven meters, reached in a single leap, also proves that it’s not a slow-moving monster like a blood wolf zombie.”

He walked around to the other side of the sofa. “After killing people, she left in the other direction. After walking a certain distance, she stepped into new bloodstains, leaving some more traces.”

“Brother Jue,” Xiao Tan asked, “you still haven’t answered my question. Does wearing high heels necessarily mean she’s a beauty?”

Feng Bujue replied, “Look at the footprints from when it came.” He walked to the side he had been at earlier. “These footprints were ‘walked’, not ‘run’, and certainly not the ‘shuffle’ of a zombie.” He pointed to the ground. “Judging from the stride and the depth of the bloodstains, its height is around 1.65 meters, its weight isn’t heavy, and its gait while walking can be described as graceful and charming.”

“Maybe it’s just a monster with a very seductive walking posture,” Xiao Tan replied.

“A monster wearing high heels, or a man wearing high heels… walking towards you unhurriedly. Would you still sit comfortably on the sofa and wait for it to get within ten steps?” Feng Bujue asked.

“Hmm…” Xiao Tan thought about it, and it seemed to make sense.

“If the Deriver’s appearance looked like a monster from afar, NamesAreHardToComeUpWith would have already opened fire,” Feng Bujue continued. “Then there would be two possibilities. First, the Deriver starts running, rushing over to launch an attack.”

“Judging from the footprints, that can already be ruled out, right?” Xiao Tan said.

Feng Bujue said, “The second possibility… the Deriver continues to maintain its pace, walking over slowly, and then launching an attack.” He paused. “In that case… NamesAreHardToComeUpWith and Young Master Atobe wouldn’t have continued to stay on the sofa. They would have had plenty of time to stand up, retreat, and switch to fighting while retreating.”

“Maybe they were pinned to the sofa by some kind of superpower of the monster and couldn’t move?” Xiao Tan said.

“Rather than explaining it that way, it’s better to directly overturn the assumption that ‘its appearance looks like a monster at first glance’,” Feng Bujue said.

“That’s true…” Xiao Tan said. “So, assuming the Deriver’s appearance is a human female, how can you be sure she’s a beauty?”

“Saying ‘beauty’ is just my intuition,” Feng Bujue said. “She might have an ordinary appearance.”

“Tch…”

Feng Bujue smiled and continued, “So, the course of events is… they were sitting here, watching a female whose appearance didn’t look like a monster, moving her lotus steps lightly, walking gracefully.” As he spoke, he sat down on the sofa again. “When the Deriver approached to within about ten steps, the two finally noticed some abnormality and must have immediately launched a resistance. However, realizing the danger at this distance was already too late. The Deriver instantly pounced over and ended the battle.” He touched the torn leather on the sofa. “These marks are almost like Wolverine committed the crime here, and the last few footprints beyond those ten steps show absolutely no signs of acceleration or deepening.”

“What does that mean?” Xiao Tan asked.

“How far can you jump if you jump forward lightly without a running start?” Feng Bujue said.

“Two meters at most, right?”

“This Deriver can jump at least six meters.”

“Hmm…”

“After jumping that distance, it quickly tore apart the two people’s bodies with some kind of claw-like weapon or its own hands, and the sofa beneath them suffered the same fate,” Feng Bujue said, propping up his chin. “That’s about what it explains.”

Xiao Tan raised his head and shouted to Pan Feng and Hua Xiong, who were ambushing on the rooftop of a building not far away, “Hey, guys! You have to keep a close eye on things!”

The two ignored him and continued chatting…

Feng Bujue said, “Don’t worry, didn’t they say that as long as the Deriver appears within a kilometer, they’ll get a system notification and be able to see the target’s coordinates on the script map they have?”

“I say, this system is really conflicted. Wouldn’t it be over if they just sent the Deriver’s coordinates to them directly?” Xiao Tan said.

“That’s why they say Derivers are ‘uncontrollable data’. They must have some kind of characteristic that resists system searches and interference. If they could really do what you said, wouldn’t the system just strike the Deriver dead with lightning? Why would they need GMs to do it?” Feng Bujue said. “Speaking of which… we can’t completely believe what those two guys said, either.”

Xiao Tan’s expression changed. “What? Are they lying to us about something?”

“It doesn’t seem like it. What they said should all be true,” Feng Bujue said. “But… they’re just two employees. How do you know that all the information about Derivers that the Dream Company executives told them is true…”